I read two articles today that both seemed to “teach” the same lesson: Be careful about “doing good” that actually does harm. Here are the prime illustrations the authors offered.

The first article, Crucial question: Do you want to get well?, by Marvin Olasky, in the November 29/December 6 World magazine, noted that

Some say . . . offering aid, without pushing for change, is a Christian obligation. . . .[Y]et consider what Christ says in Chapter 5 of John’s Gospel when He talks directly to a man who has been an invalid for 38 years. That man has become accustomed to spending his days by a pool at Bethesda said to have medicinal qualities, but Jesus asks him a probing question: “Do you want to get well?”

Jesus asks about getting well. He does not assume that the man, despite being in a pitiful condition, wants to get well.

Jesus also understands our ignorance. When the invalid gives a materialist explanation of his problem–”I have no one to help me get into the pool when the water is stirred”–Jesus ignores his desire to keep doing what has already failed to help. Instead, Jesus challenges the man: “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” He offers miraculous healing and tells the man to become a responsible member of society, one who does not believe his math behind and walks away with it. . . .

Some may suggest that getting a person off the streets will remove his desire for alcohol or drugs, but the actual result is often the opposite: Freed from having to find a place to sleep, the alcoholic or addicted homeless man, now homed, can home in on his daily drugs.

Some among the chronically homeless are mentally ill and would benefit from institutionalization. Children certainly need to be off the streets. But many who have worked for years with homeless adults speak of the need for them to “hit bottom” before they are ready to give a positive response to that most basic of questions, “Do you want to get well?” For them, “housing first” [the federal government policy that gives people apartments without requiring that they abandon drinking or drugs] is false compassion.

–p. 58

The second article, from the November-December 2008 Mission Frontiers magazine, tells the specific story of one man’s observations of “ministry” among impoverished people in Tijuana, Mexico. The magazine editor suggests that

This . . . account illustrates very well the inherent flaw in what could be called “felt need” or “symptomatic” aid. Not all homeless people are willing to “get a job” when handouts supply their basic needs. In this case, . . . the dump dwellers were . . . working for a living (isolating different metal or glass items, fixable items, etc.) and would have welcomed a more humane activity for making a living. But instead of mission workers going to the trouble of helping them find that more humane role, they are meeting their immediate (“felt”) need for handouts [the residents of the dump] can eat or sell. That can continue forever. [And, indeed, i]n order to qualify for handouts, they are forced to stay “in the dump.”

And the story:

For a while, I worked at the Mexican municipal trash dump in Tijuana . . . The people there were truly a needy, hurting people. . . .

The homes were simple. Cardboard, tacked-on plastic, a scrap of board, an old car hood for one wall, all wrapped with wire to hold it together, and a couple of tires on top to keep the roof from blowing away. Few homes had outhouses. Fewer still had a septic hole dug underneath. It didn’t matter; everything flowed together into the dump.

The families there worked hard; at least until many well-intentioned Christian groups corrupted the dump with a mix of evangelism and welfare. As more and more groups began visiting the dump, some residents found it all too simple to just quit working altogether. The compassionate Christian visitors gave away so much stuff that the dump people could earn plenty a couple days a week in selling the American mercy gifts at swap meets. The weekends would be dedicated to “being poor” and receiving more goods from the generous Christian groups, a couple of days could be given to selling those gifts and the rest of the time, well, that’s another story. . . .

Many American Christian and secular groups found it a fantastic adventure “helping the dump people.” [Sadly, i]t was their “help” [that] made real ministry there difficult; the community had learned a new, “adjusted” lifestyle.

During the week, the people would joke about “Los Evangelicos,” the Evangelicals, who would come without fail every Saturday. They came with food and clothing and other gifts. The poorer that one appeared, the more he would be rewarded. And so it went; most every weekend, vans and buses and trailers would pull in over the hill to “help the dump people.” With cameras flashing, food and clothing were passed out.

“Rice missions” produced “rice Christians.”

A few groups worked hard to really help those who needed assistance. They did all they could do to maintain the dignity of the people. [But t]hese were very few and they could not hold back the tide of the multitude of groups [that] naively believe that Mexico can be evangelized with no more than a handful of Spanish tracts or a film and a bag of beans or rice. However, what they saw was convincing enough to them.

I guess we just watched from a different perspective.

Week after week, the same people would “get saved” and be rewarded or “blessed” with some beans or rice or some other token expressing thanks for their response to the message. In time, the people learned that poverty was their most valuable resource. The worse you looked, the more you would be given. Many groups walked around like tourists in a zoo. Some would gawk and hold their noses while others clicked off photo after photo. Some groups would stand on top of their bus or van and throw food and clothing into the unruly crowd. As the people fought over the nicer items, they were photographed. In later years, some of those in the dump learned to charge for their photo. There are endless stories best left behind in that smoldering dump along with the piles of burning dogs, the aborted babies, the trash and the corruptions left by many well-meaning ministries.

Christian missions could learn a lot from the dump. Much would depend on the vantage point, I suppose. Evangelism without teaching and discipleship can be a disaster. It’s happened many times. A great deal of harm and destruction can be caused by “the ministry.” . . .

The ministry they needed the most and those most capable of really helping them never quite arrived. The dump ended up being a fairly hopeless place to minister.

In my personal opinion, in many ways, “missions” made it so.

–pp. 25-26

So how do we avoid these pitfalls? Often, it may require us to “do the hard thing” and refuse to offer “help” . . . when it would actually harm the recipient. Choose to feel good only about that which will really help than to do that which looks like help, but is not.

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